i think i figured it out, the [ and ] characters have to be double-escaped
like so
new RegExp("\\[[^]*\\]","igm");
d.
On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 2:17 PM, Derrick Anderson <
[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> just bumping this one up there, it is critical for my app to do this and I
> see no way past it. anybody ever needed to find content with regex that
> contained [] characters?
>
> thanks,
> d.
>
>
> On Wed, Apr 16, 2008 at 10:01 AM, Derrick Anderson <
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> > hey i'm not a regex pro by far which is why i asked if my regex was
> > wrong- but taking your suggestion it still does not work- not sure why.
> > i've used the RegExr air app to test this and the simplest i can get it is
> > new RegExp("\[[^]*\]","igm");
> >
> > this works when {} are used but not when [] is used, you can see in the
> > example below- it looks like escaping the [] is affecting the match
> > (although it works fine in the regex test tool).
> >
> > <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
> > <mx:Application xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml";
> > layout="absolute">
> > <mx:Script>
> > <![CDATA[
> > private var mergeRE:RegExp = new RegExp("\[[^]*\]","igm");
> > private var mergeRE2:RegExp = new RegExp("{[^]*}","igm");
> >
> > public function runSquareBracketTest():void
> > {
> > var response:Array = subjectString.text.match(mergeRE);
> > resultString.text = response.toString();
> > }
> >
> > public function runCurlyBracketTest():void
> > {
> > var response:Array =
> > subjectString.text.match(mergeRE2);
> > resultString.text = response.toString();
> > }
> > ]]>
> > </mx:Script>
> >
> > <mx:VBox>
> > <mx:TextArea id="subjectString" width="400" height="200">
> > <mx:text>
> > <![CDATA[<strong>[Employee First Name] </strong>
> > <strong>{Employee Last Name} </strong>]]>
> > </mx:text>
> > </mx:TextArea>
> > <mx:TextArea id="resultString" width="400" height="200" />
> > <mx:Button click="runSquareBracketTest();" label="Get first
> > name." />
> > <mx:Button click="runCurlyBracketTest();" label="Get last name."
> > />
> > </mx:VBox>
> > </mx:Application>
> >
> > On Tue, Apr 15, 2008 at 4:33 PM, Gordon Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >
> > > I'm confused... why isn't your pattern something like "\[.*]\]" ?
> > > What's going on with the ^ and the > ? What is supposed to match against
> > > letters like E, m, p, l, etc.?
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Gordon Smith
> > >
> > > Adobe Flex SDK Team
> > >
> > >
> > > ------------------------------
> > >
> > > *From:* [email protected] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > > *On Behalf Of *Derrick Anderson
> > > *Sent:* Tuesday, April 15, 2008 1:23 PM
> > > *To:* [email protected]
> > > *Subject:* Re: [flexcoders] RegExp searching for [ and ], are they
> > > reserved?
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > i had tried escaping them, below i've pasted an example of my problem-
> > > 2 samples: 1 looking for [Employee First Name] and one looking for
> > > {Employee
> > > First Name} (curly braces vs square braces) and even though the brackets
> > > are escaped, the regex with [ and ] only return the ending ]. do i have
> > > the
> > > regex wrong?
> > >
> > > <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
> > > <mx:Application xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml";
> > > layout="absolute">
> > > <mx:Script>
> > > <![CDATA[
> > > private var mergeRE:RegExp = new
> > > RegExp("\[[^>]*?\]","igm");
> > > private var mergeRE2:RegExp = new
> > > RegExp("{[^>]*?}","igm");
> > >
> > > public function runSquareBracketTest():void
> > > {
> > > var response:Array =
> > > subjectString.text.match(mergeRE);
> > > resultString.text = response.toString();
> > > }
> > >
> > > public function runCurlyBracketTest():void
> > > {
> > > var response:Array =
> > > subjectString.text.match(mergeRE2);
> > > resultString.text = response.toString();
> > > }
> > > ]]>
> > > </mx:Script>
> > >
> > > <mx:VBox>
> > > <mx:TextArea id="subjectString" width="400" height="200">
> > > <mx:text>
> > > <![CDATA[<strong>[Employee First Name] </strong>
> > > <strong>{Employee Last Name} </strong>]]>
> > > </mx:text>
> > > </mx:TextArea>
> > > <mx:TextArea id="resultString" width="400" height="200" />
> > > <mx:Button click="runSquareBracketTest();" label="Get first
> > > name." />
> > > <mx:Button click="runCurlyBracketTest();" label="Get last
> > > name." />
> > > </mx:VBox>
> > > </mx:Application>
> > >
> > > On Tue, Apr 15, 2008 at 4:08 PM, Gordon Smith <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > [ and ] are metacharacters in RegExp patterns. For example, "[abc]"
> > > matches either "a", or 'b" or "c". To prevent this interpretation, escape
> > > them with a backslash.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Gordon Smith
> > >
> > > Adobe Flex SDK Team
> > >
> > >
> > > ------------------------------
> > >
> > > *From:* [email protected] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > > *On Behalf Of *Derrick Anderson
> > > *Sent:* Tuesday, April 15, 2008 12:49 PM
> > > *To:* [email protected]
> > > *Subject:* [flexcoders] RegExp searching for [ and ], are they
> > > reserved?
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > hey all,
> > >
> > > i'm trying to do a replace on a string and replace anything in
> > > brackets with something else.
> > >
> > > so [this] word would get replaced, however in the regex tester at
> > > gskinner this works fine (it's flex based regex test tool) but in my local
> > > code- i always get unexpected results when my regex expression has
> > > brackets
> > > in it.
> > >
> > > private var mergeRE:RegExp = new RegExp("\[[^>]*?]","igm");
> > >
> > > is there another escape character i need to use, why does flash have a
> > > problem searching for [ and ] in regex?
> > >
> > > thanks,
> > > d.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> >
>
